


You Will Eat Cake

by Mosca



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Bathroom Sex, Bisexuality, Bittersweet Ending, Hotel Sex, M/M, Sex Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-18 22:19:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2364092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosca/pseuds/Mosca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben's quarterlife crisis leads him to experimentation, mostly with Johnny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Will Eat Cake

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Sandyk and Shoesforall for beta reading. The title is from "Lines from the Fortune Cookies" by Frank O'Hara. I wrote this for No Glove No Love, a safer sex fic challenge, and originally posted it to my Livejournal in August 2006.
> 
> This fic contains: people having sex with each other while still in (bad) relationships with other people; lots and lots of condoms.

Tanith blames it on Ben's Saturn return. She says there's some astrological thing when you hit your mid-twenties, when you see your whole past behind you and the future doesn't look that long ahead of you, and you lose your head a little. Tanith doesn't believe in the astrology, but she says Ben is making her believe in the concept. Ben tells her that he doesn't know what she's talking about. He doesn't see how anything's different -- or, at least, any difference that can't be explained by a silver medal and a whole pile of new endorsements. So many skaters talk about what they're going to do with their lives after they retire, and then they end up doing exhibition tours until they're forty and coaching until they die, endlessly reliving their best competitions. Some of those skaters are people he likes, his friends, and that makes it worse. He's afraid he's going to be one of them. He's learning other things, the voiceover work and the guitar, but he doesn't know if they'll take him anywhere. He doesn't know if he'll be ready, when the time comes, to have another life. But that's not an existential crisis, that's practicality. 

The irony is, there _is_ weird stuff going on, but Tanith has no way of knowing about it. She always knows when there's something, but he's not willing to give her the details. It's sexual, and it's embarrassing. He's been seeing Merrie even less than usual: he's so busy with the ads and the press and the voice work and the tour that when he's in Detroit, he's either training or sleeping. When he does have a chance to spend time with his girlfriend, she wants to talk and snuggle, or worse, drag his tired ass out dancing. He's starting to think she doesn't want to have sex with him anymore, period. It's been slowing down for a while, and he hasn't wanted to push. 

So his entire sex life is in his head, and his head is all over the place. There was a bartender in New Jersey, early in their tour, who had a pierced tongue and another stud beneath her lower lip, and he couldn't stop wondering what the cool metal would feel like in his mouth and on his dick. And despite having devoted most of his life to a sport where he's severely outnumbered by gay men, it's taken him this long to get fixated on the fact that gay men probably give incredible blow jobs. He can't get it out of his head that he's never had these experiences. He's worried that he'll never have the chance to know.

He tries to channel the anxiety into other things. There is a week when he masturbates literally every time he could get a few minutes alone, but it doesn't help: it's about the curiosity and the need for contact, much more than it's about physical release. He succeeds in distracting himself with the guitar for a while, but he ends up practicing so much that Gwendal and Dan notice and want lessons. He's still working on ways to discuss it with Merrie, but he doesn't want her to bother if she's going to go about it grudgingly, and it's not like she's going to go out and get her tongue pierced for him. It's not like anything is going to change. It'll pass.

Tanith catches him staring at a black girl with an intricate tattoo of morning glories and vines climbing her arm, and she figures it out all on her own. "Tell me the Saturn return doesn't translate to you cheating on Merrie," she says.

"Only in my imagination," he says.

"But in your imagination?"

"I've got someone new in every city," he says.

"So it's, like, a body art thing?" she says.

"Sometimes," he says. "Or, like, girls with a lot up front, or who are taller than I am. Or Asian girls, or -- or. Um."

"Um?"

"You know," he says, hoping she'll guess.

She puts her fingertips to her temples and wrinkles her brow. "Nope," she says, "the telepathy isn't working today."

"Guys," he says in a huge, nervous breath.

She is perfectly calm. "Seriously?" she says.

"Just, I mean, not like in a -- It's curiosity."

"No, seriously, because I know of at least one person who's had a thing for you since _forever_."

"It's not -- it's not something I'm acting on," he says. "It's just --"

"All the things you've never had," she says, nodding. Apparently the telepathy is back on line.

"All the things I can't ever have," he says. "But I figure -- I figure it'll pass."

"It'll pass," she says, but she smiles like there's something she's not telling him. Like he has so much to be afraid of that she can't get started. He doesn't want to think about it, so he's sticking with the belief that it's going to go away, all of it.

*

Johnny comes up behind Ben in the men's locker room in Duluth and scares the crap out of him. "Talk to me for a minute?" Johnny says.

"What do you need?" Ben says.

"No, I mean, come with me and talk to me," Johnny says. He leads Ben to the bathroom and locks them in a stall together. It's claustrophobic, and Ben comforts himself by noting the open space above the stall dividers: he could climb over the side and escape. Johnny says, "Okay, I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but I'm, like, I have a boyfriend. So it's, I just want you to know that it's nothing personal."

Ben squints at him. "What _is_ this?" he says.

"Oh, oh my God, there's this thing going around that you -- That, like, what I should have taken away from it was to stop fucking listening to people. Seriously."

"There's a _thing_ going around?" Ben says.

"I think people are bored," Johnny says. "Don't worry about it."

"But there's a thing going around," Ben says. "About me."

"About us," Johnny says. "Which is incredibly stupid, so we should just --"

"Yeah," Ben says. "Thanks for the heads up." But he is thinking -- cannot stop thinking -- that this guy could blow him right now, and it would be amazing. The thorniest part of it is, he can't figure out whether he's actually attracted to Johnny or not. They've known each other for what seems like forever, since they were skating at the junior level, and Ben's never given it a thought. He remembers what Tanith told him: she knows someone who's had a thing for him since forever. "This isn't something Tan came to you about, is it?" he says.

Johnny's eyes go wide. "No, I heard it from -- I don't know. Like I said. She wouldn't do that to you, would she? I mean, I know you guys mess with each other sometimes, but --"

"No," Ben says. "She wouldn't."

"Would there... be a reason for her to?" Johnny says.

"No. No, like you said, we mess with each other sometimes."

"Oh," Johnny says. "Okay." He looks hurt, and he should: they have no business dragging him into their craziness. Tanith isn't that close to him anymore, for reasons that Ben has never pursued. And Ben has always been cautious of him. Johnny is a little more than he can handle, most of the time. Way too intense. 

"Not that -- if I was going to, you know, make an exception, I could -- I wouldn't --"

"Really?" Johnny says it like he's trying to spin a little flirtation onto the end of it, a little confidence, but it ends up just sounding shaky. He's hopeful, and Ben hadn't intended to give him that. At the same time, it's infectious. Johnny wouldn't shy away. Ben would get that amazing blow job. But there is no way to get it without losing Merrie, and Ben doubts it's worth that much.

"I mean, if I _was_ going to," Ben says. "Is all."

"Okay," Johnny says. His smile is horribly false. "As long as that's... clear. And stuff. I mean --" He is rambling like a cartoon character with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. Ben knows what Johnny's devil is saying, because he's got his own, a and it's whispering, _grab him, kiss him_.

"You have to go first," Ben says, interrupting him. "If you want me to -- whatever."

"Who said I wanted you to anything?" Johnny says, and now the smile is real, shy, a flirtation shining up from under his eyelashes.

"Nobody," Ben says. He reaches for the door, and Johnny grabs him. And kisses him. 

It is the longest kiss in the history of the universe. Ben surprises himself by being able to breathe. It's like he doesn't have permission to inhale. Johnny is forceful; his momentum pushes Ben back into the stall and makes it clatter. He is sucking on Ben's lip, hard, like he is trying to take the skin off, and it turns Ben on until it hurts. To make him stop, Ben licks his upper lip, and he opens his mouth to Ben's tongue. He tastes like cinnamon. Everything in the world ought to taste like cinnamon, Ben thinks, to curve and wind like Johnny's soft slick tongue in his mouth. 

"I can't be fucking doing this," Johnny says, his lips not quite untangled from Ben's. He has thin lips, but they are soft and certain. Ben believes that he will keep them memorized forever.

"Me neither," Ben says. "Let's just not..."

"Be alone together for a while?" Johnny says.

"Probably a good idea," Ben says. 

Johnny looks away from his eyes and then down at his crotch. Skating costumes and erections don't mix. "I'll just, I'll go into the other stall and we'll... not talk about this."

"Sounds good," Ben says. Johnny's costume is all one piece, and it occurs to Ben that in order for him to get anywhere, he will have to be nearly naked. Ben could help him with that: he shouldn't, but he could. He needs to prove the possibility to himself. He grasps Johnny just below his ribcage and runs his hand diagonally down to his dick. Johnny grinds against him and smiles. He grinds again, harder, closes his eyes and throws his head back. It looks like he's lost himself completely, but he reaches behind himself and unzips his costume. When he shimmies, it falls to his ankles. His dick is warm and heavy in Ben's hand. Ben hesitates, and Johnny sticks his hand down Ben's pants. Ben doesn't have to think, just move in time with Johnny's dry, delicate hand. He comes comfortably, nonviolently, but fast, so fast he isn't sure what he's felt. Johnny follows him a few moments later, and his hands are sticky. He is praying that nothing has gotten on his costume. He grabs some toilet paper and wipes his hand off. Johnny is putting his clothes back on. It looks like he's trying to be furtive, but it's so obvious that he's avoiding Ben's eyes.

"More things to not talk about?" Ben says. 

Johnny says, "Absolutely." He looks like he is desperate to kiss Ben again, but this time the angels win out.

*

They avoid each other for the rest of the weekend. Johnny has a talent for looking away from Ben's eyes. Ben understands why, but it hurts his feelings every time he notices that Johnny has evaded his gaze. Ben wants to let it go, but what should have satisfied his curiosity has just raised more questions. He watches Johnny's program from the wings in Minneapolis and Des Moines, and in his mind, he keeps seeing the swift puddle that costume made as it fell to the ground. He sees Johnny sexually now, and he can't undo that.

It ought to bother him more. He feels like he should be reacting somehow to the fact that kissing a guy was the thing that made him so hard he couldn't see. He hasn't had time to think about how this is going to affect Merrie. This is enough to cross the line, to count as cheating. But he's blind to these things even when he tries to stare right at them. It will all hit him sooner or later. That's why he wants Johnny again, now: he needs to resolve his feelings and calm his desire before he starts to notice the repercussions of them. 

The bus arrives in Omaha at four in the morning. The humidity is thick like hands around his throat, and everyone looks soggy, taking their room keys and dragging their things into the hotel. Ben lifts Johnny's suitcase out of the hold and smiles shyly at him. It's a sneak attack, and he meets Johnny's eyes for the first time in three days. "Don't," Johnny says.

"I was just trying to be nice," Ben says. "Never mind."

"You don't owe me anything," Johnny says. "Stop trying to fucking pay me."

"I'm not. That's not what I meant."

"You should know I'm single now," Johnny said. "Fuck you very much."

"I'm sorry," Ben says. This is getting into the realm of conversations that shouldn't be had in public, and Ben goes into the hotel. He realizes when he gets to the elevator bank that it looks like he's blowing Johnny off. They wait until all of the other skaters are on their way upstairs, and they catch an elevator alone. "What happened?" Ben says.

"You thought I was just not going to tell my boyfriend?" Johnny says. When Ben doesn't answer right away, he adds, "Of course that's what you thought. It's not like you called Merrie up right away to tell her about your fabulous life-changing men's room hand job."

"Not so much," Ben says. They reach their floor. If Johnny is this hostile, Ben is willing to let this be the end of the conversation.

But Johnny follows him to his room. "He didn't dump me," Johnny says. "I broke it off with him. Like, I couldn't trust myself anymore."

"I'm sorry," Ben says again.

Johnny lets go of his suitcase handle and drops his shoulder bag. He puts his hands on his hips. He takes up a lot of space with his elbows pointed out sharply. "So you haven't, like, noticed that I've been totally fixated on you ever since we -- Jesus fucking Christ. Never mind."

"You've been ignoring me," Ben says. "I'm supposed to interpret that as fixated?"

"I don't know," Johnny says. "I guess it was clearer in my mind."

Ben unlocks his door and shoves it open with his shoulder. "You could come in," he says.

"And what would happen to me if I did that?" Johnny says. There's still an edge of hostility to his voice, but it's receding. 

Ben shrugs. "Could be anything," he says.

"Then I should find out," Johnny says, and he wheels his stuff into the room, like he's planning to move in permanently. He leans back against the wall next to the bathroom door with his arms crossed and his eyes almost closed. There's no way he's going to make the first move. He's not going to take responsibility for any of this: he's happy to let it all be Ben's fault. 

Ben considers getting into bed and going to sleep. Johnny isn't the only one who can play games. But his dick gets ahead of his competitive instinct, and he can't resist flattening Johnny against the wall and kissing him roughly, dominantly. Johnny is digging his fingers into Ben's back, grabbing at his shirt; Ben is running his hands up through Johnny's hair. It feels natural to be kissing him, like this is what they're supposed to be doing, like all this time spent not kissing was the unfortunate prologue to the rest of their lives. They are pressed so tightly together that Ben can feel Johnny's heart beating. He can also feel Johnny getting hard into his thigh. It's something he hadn't realized he'd be able to feel, and it's hot. It makes him think, he could go first, he could show Johnny what he wants, what he's expecting. He puts his hand on Johnny's chest to create a little space between them, and he takes a deep breath to collect himself. He is capable of figuring this out. He'll improvise. 

He's barely bent his knees when Johnny has slipped out from between him and the wall to find something in his shoulder bag. He empties out half a dozen things before he finds what he's looking for. He comes back tearing open a condom wrapper. "What?" Ben says. "I was just going to go down on you."

"Yeah, but you're -- this is new. New to me. And I'm... paranoid, and -- okay, never mind, I'm sure you don't have anything, but --"

It comforts Ben to know that he isn't the only nervous one. "No, if it makes you feel safer, then -- I mean, it's whatever you want."

"It would," Johnny says. He looks Ben over. "You've never given anyone a blow job in your life, have you?"

"Nope," Ben says. He doesn't mean to sound proud of it.

Johnny sighs like he can't believe he broke up with his boyfriend for this. "Okay," he says. "Then, um -- here." He puts the wrapped condom in Ben's hand.

"Tropical fruit," Ben reads off the wrapper.

"I bought them in Minnesota, like, right after that show," Johnny says. "I'm an optimist."

Ben feels that he knows Johnny well enough to say, "No, you really aren't."

"You're about to go down on me," Johnny says. "That's enough to make an optimist out of anybody."

Ben stands there with the condom in his hand and his enthusiasm fading. There are obviously some high expectations here, some entrenched fantasies that he can't live up to. He shakes his hands out, trying to release his anxiety, to loosen out his body. Johnny starts taking his clothes off. He is efficient and thorough, not giving a striptease but getting things out of the way. When he's naked, he says, "Look at me. And don't just -- I mean, really _look_ , and if you don't see what you want? You need to tell me so I can put my clothes back on and leave."

Ben starts with his feet because they're easy. Callused, muscular, knotted skater feet with long toes and high arches. Pure muscle all the way up his legs, too, and those legs go on a long time. Dark, fine hair on them, which Ben hasn't thought about, but which makes sense. He's got an Ace bandage around one ankle. He is mostly one straight line from his heels to his armpits, but his hips are a little bit wide, not in a feminine way, but in a way that suggests the flexibility of those joints. His dick is no surprise, and it's conveying a state of arousal somewhere between boredom and desperation. It is the most natural thing about him, the part of his body least sculpted and trained, more so because it's just below a perfect flat eight-pack of abs. His pecs are the same way, his chest smooth and pale, his nipples small peaks the color of raspberries. His arms are endless and ropy; he's joked on the bus about having heroin-addict veins. His hands are a little too big for his wrists, with prominent tendons and manicured half-moon nails. Ben retraces Johnny's arms with his eyes, runs over the harsh curve of his shoulders and the graceful length of his neck. Johnny's chin is dusty with stubble and his lips raw with kissing. Ben reaches his eyes last, because they are the most difficult: intense, gray-green, and demanding. It's like staring back into the void. What he wants to shout is, _Every inch of you is beautiful._ But it feels like it's too soon.

"You want me, don't you?" Johnny says. "You actually fucking want me."

"I actually fucking do," Ben says, and he elicits a laugh as Johnny lies back on the bed.

"Okay," Johnny says. "Okay, here's what we'll do." His smile is pure desire, full of anticipation. "Put that on me, and I'll just, I'll talk you through." Briefly, Ben mishears it as "walking" him through, like Johnny is going to put his hands on his hips and guide him through a step sequence. But they are not such different things.

Ben kicks off his shoes and bounces onto the bed. Johnny grabs him by the front of his shirt and pulls him down into a kiss. Ben isn't sure whether he's supposed to put the condom on now or wait for Johnny to take a breath. He holds himself up with one hand and puts the condom down on Johnny's chest. He runs his free hand from there to Johnny's dick, just to get a feel for it, a sense of what he's working with. Johnny jerks up into his hand and sighs into his mouth. Ben was all set to be pragmatic about this, to think only about doing it well, but there's no way of doing that with Johnny clawing at his back. Ben rocks back onto his knees, unwraps the condom, and unrolls it onto Johnny's dick. "Done," he says.

"Okay, um --" Johnny laughs, like he didn't realize Ben was quite this clueless. And he isn't, but he doesn't want to be wrong. "Okay, put your hand around -- This is so weird. I'm not sure if I can do this."

"That makes two of us," Ben says. He doesn't know why Johnny should be so nervous, but it's reassuring. "Listen, I'll -- I'll just wing it. Kick me if it's really bad."

"No, if it's bad, I'll just lie here and look bored." 

Ben hopes he's joking. He swallows some air and leans down. He's pretty sure he's going to hurt himself. He gets an inch or two in his mouth before he gags and Johnny says, "Shit, don't try to deep throat me. Just -- okay. Put your hand around the base and, like, use your tongue." Ben follows his instructions, or tries. Johnny says, "No, kind of in a circle, like -- yeah. Oh, fuck yeah. Like that." Ben doesn't want to mess with what seems to be working, so he keeps drawing circles on the tip of Johnny's dick with the tip of his tongue until his jaw aches. He makes some circles in the other direction, tries a few other shapes, and doesn't get kicked, so he figures he's on the right track. His confidence surges enough that he's willing to add a little suction, and Johnny responds to that with a grind of his hips and a breathy "Harder," which Ben does his best to obey. Johnny is breathing in short, sharp bursts, like he's trying to say something but can't form a thought. He shoves his hips up when he comes and almost throws Ben off of him. But that means it worked. Somehow, he's made it work.

Johnny is still lying on his back, eyes heavy, like he's just noticed that it's 4:30 in the morning. Ben is torn between his fundamentally peaceful nature and the fact that if he's gone through all this, only to not get his dick sucked, he is seriously going to hurt something. "I'm sorry," Ben says, because it covers both bases. He gets off the bed and stands at the end of it, looking down at Johnny.

"For what?" Johnny says.

"For, um --"

"No, you, um, I mean, you got me there, right?" Johnny says. "So that's, like, promising. It's like -- remember your first axel?"

Ben remembers the bruise. He also remembers two months of grueling practice, one dislocated shoulder, and the decision to switch from freestyle to dance. "So I guess I... landed this?" Johnny giggles a little too knowingly, and Ben stares at him sideways. "You landed your first axel, didn't you?"

"You landed your first blow job," Johnny said. "And hey, you have an axel now, right?"

"Well, I haven't tried lately, but --" He clears his throat. "Do you need to go?"

"No, I -- I just wanted you to not feel bad about it," Johnny said. "Because guilt isn't sexy, and you are so _fucking_ sexy right now that, like -- I should stop talking. I should just stop talking." 

He gets up off the bed. He's standing with his chest pressed against Ben's, and it feels like there has been no movement in between. He runs his hand up between Ben's shirt and skin to pinch Ben's nipple, rub it between his fingers like it's made of clay. Ben gasps, and Johnny fills his open mouth with his tongue. Ben is straining against his jeans, worried that he's going to get off before Johnny's mouth gets anywhere near his dick. Johnny has to be able to feel how hard he's getting, but that only seems to inspire him to tease Ben more. He unbuttons Ben's fly, but he lingers his hand just below waistband of Ben's shorts, where Ben's pubes start and the skin is so much more sensitive than Ben had realized, until Ben says, "Just fucking -- _Please_."

Johnny drops to his knees so fast, it looks like he's going to hurt himself. 

"You were waiting for me to beg?" Ben says.

"I decided I wasn't going to do anything else without your permission," Johnny says. "Like, it just seemed like I kept -- like I was forcing you into stuff, and I really don't -- I need to know that you want this."

"I want you to suck my dick," Ben says, slowly and clearly, like it's going on the record and he has to avoid any chance of being misunderstood. It seems to be just what Johnny needed to hear. He reaches around Ben to get another condom out of his bag; he opens the wrapper and puts the condom in his mouth. He pushes Ben's jeans and shorts down past his hips and takes Ben's dick in his hand. When he leans his head down, he does something with his tongue, and he unrolls the condom over Ben's dick. He is showing off, and it's cute, and that relaxes Ben. That is Ben's last coherent thought, because it turns out there are a lot of things that Johnny can do with his tongue, up and around and over Ben's cock. Ben wants to hold back and feel more of them, but he can't do it anymore. He comes hard, gritting his teeth, holding his breath.

When he opens his eyes, Johnny is elsewhere, gathering his clothes. Ben says, "You might as well stay."

"I don't need to," Johnny says. "It's not a big deal."

"We've got to be up in, like, five hours, and all your stuff's here," Ben says. "And it's a big bed." He's just trying to be hospitable. It seems like if a guy's just blown you, the least you can do is invite him to stay. That way, the message is clear when he says he's leaving.

"You want me here?" Johnny says.

"Sure."

Johnny sits on the edge of the bed, still naked. Ben is uncomfortably half-dressed, and he takes his clothes the rest of the way off. He gets into bed, all the way on one side, and Johnny gets in with him, all the way on the other side. He turns out the light. Downtown Omaha is brighter than Ben would have thought. All he intends to give Johnny is a quick good night kiss, a gesture of gratitude, but there is no such thing between them as one quick kiss. The exhaustion hits while they're making out, and they are falling asleep in each other's mouths. As he drifts off, Ben realizes that he's being held, and that he is in deep, deep trouble.

*

Ben's got three days in Detroit before they go back on tour, and they're mostly full of training. He's in the gym with his personal trainer at 6 AM, and his last block of ice time with Tanith ends at four in the afternoon. For the first two days, he's so tired after that, he only has enough energy to shovel down some food and play video games until he falls asleep. On the third, he's made plans to see Merrie, and he's so ridden with guilt that he can't bring himself to make excuses. She makes him dinner; they watch a movie. She tells him that he seems distant. He seems distant because it's impossible to be anything else with someone he's actively deceiving. But if he tells her, he'll lose her. He's not sure whether that frightens him because of the strength of his love for her, or if it's just that they've been together so long that he doesn't know who he'd be without her.

They don't have sex. When he sends the usual signals, sliding his hand unsubtly up her thigh and kissing her neck, she makes an excuse for running to the kitchen. She puts a couple of extra inches between them when she comes back. He gets it: she's not into it. But if she were, he might not be so distant. He wouldn't be sitting here watching a movie he's already seen twice on the tour bus, reminiscing fondly about Johnny's mouth on his dick. It's an act of endurance to get to the end of the movie, and he begs off as soon as it's over, saying he has to wake up early, he has to pack. All of this is true, but it's all stuff he could postpone if he wanted to. 

He gets a text message while he's driving home, and he pulls his phone out of his pocket the second he walks in the door so he can read it. The only person who ever texts him is Tanith. But it's from Johnny, asking what time his flight is tomorrow. Ben's not sure how Johnny even has his phone number, and this is exactly what he doesn't need: evidence that he's not the only one who can't get his mind off that blow job. He sends Johnny his flight time, leaving in the morning, getting to Tulsa in the early afternoon. Johnny doesn't send him another message, and he gets ready for bed. He's turning out the light when his phone beeps, and he's got plans for tomorrow: "Tulsa backstage find me." Tonight, all of his dreams take place in hotel beds, men's restrooms, and the back of the tour bus.

He manages not to sleep through his alarm, and this time Tanith is pissed off because he's early when he comes to pick her up to take her to the airport, and she's not ready yet. He stands in her bedroom with his arms folded while she shoves half her wardrobe into a suitcase. "We're going to be there for two days," he says, knowing that this is a losing battle.

"Three," she says. "And I don't know how I'm going to feel while I'm there." She chooses one last pair of shoes and presses all of the weight of her upper body into the suitcase while she zips it. She says, "You're one to talk about carrying around more baggage than you can handle."

"Everything I brought fits in the overhead bin," he says.

"That's not what I mean," she says, like it's supposed to be obvious.

"Whatever."

"Okay, fuck the clever metaphor," she says. "You have to lose at least one of them. Either you cut him off, you break up with her, or -- even better -- you dump them both and start over. I don't care. But both's not going to work, not with either of them. I've been putting up with it for two weeks, and I'm done. And that's all I'm going to say about it ever."

"All future communications will be in the form of disapproving stares?" he says.

"Don't be cute," she says. There are knives in her voice. A wave of panic rushes through him. There are all kinds of people he's willing to alienate over this, but she's not one of them. If she's this disappointed in him, something has to change. 

"What do I do?" he says. "I don't know what to -- I don't know how to do this."

She dumps a couple of last-minute things into her purse and says, "Me neither. Who does? Seriously." 

He helps her drag her suitcase out to the car and puts it in the trunk. "But it's a non-choice, right?" he says. "Merrie's the one I stay with. I mean, that's how it goes, isn't it? I did my stupid thing, and now I get to tell the stupid thing there won't be any more doing."

"I don't know," she says, getting into the car. 

"You think I should get rid of them both," he says.

"Well, not 'get rid of,' necessarily, but, like -- Do you even _like_ either of them right now?" 

"I don't know," he says, and it isn't a lie, but the long version of the story is, every time he sees Merrie, he likes her a little less. Where Johnny's concerned, the question doesn't even make sense. He likes what Johnny does to his dick, and the rest of him doesn't matter.

"You're allowed to be single," she says. "It's not a crime against humanity."

"I'm not sure I remember how to be," he says.

"Is that what's stopping you?" she says.

"There's a lot of things," he says. She waits, like she's hoping she's going to get more out of him. Usually, she does: usually, he'll tell her anything. But he doesn't have words for this yet. He promises himself that he'll find some for her. 

Tanith plays with the radio, frowns at all the commercials, and leans back in her seat when she finds a tolerable '80s pop song. She tries to sing along, which is irritating because she's three octaves higher than the other set of vocals and she doesn't actually know most of the words. "'Bizarre Love Triangle,'" she says. "That's appropriate."

"You're doing this on purpose," he says.

"With my magical mind control super powers," she says. 

"Would that they worked on skating judges," he says.

"I would never use my magical super powers to cheat," she says. "Only to rescue kittens from trees. And skating partners from bad life decisions."

"Aw, you're going to make me feel special," he says.

"Deservedly," she says. 

*

Their schedule in Tulsa is crazy. Get off the plane, find their luggage, find the COI rep, drag their stuff to the COI bus, endure a lecture about the limited cargo space on the tour bus that is clearly targeted at only one of them, go directly to the Tulsa Convention Center for an hour of practice, an hour of local press, and some aimless sitting around before the show. Obviously, this schedule has been devised by vengeful orcs.

Backstage, there is nowhere to nap. Most of the skaters haven't arrived yet, and Tanith wants to get some time on the ice before it gets all chewed and crowded. Ben stalls, prolonging his stretching routine, unwilling to tell her that he's hoping Johnny will show up. It's going to be his last incredible Johnny Weir blow job before he puts an end to this mess, and he's determined not to stand Johnny up. But all the determination in the world can't stand up to Tanith's impatience, and he knows he's the one with the messed-up priorities. He leaves his head backstage; she can tell, and he can tell she's pissed. She wants to run their twizzle sequence, mostly to torture him, and they're running it for the million-and-first time when an angry blur of black and white nearly sideswipes him. He sticks his toe pick into the ice sharply and pivots to watch Johnny hurl himself into a flawless triple salchow that also appears to be an expression of barely-contained rage. "Don't you dare go over there," Tanith says, so of course Ben charges across the rink as fast as his blades will carry him. 

Johnny is doing back crossovers, accelerating into something, and Ben mimics his speed and edge, placing himself slightly ahead so that Johnny can't shake him. As if Ben were invisible, Johnny whips into a sit spin, making a deadly weapon of his extended leg. Ben can't bend himself into a cannonball, but he can lean forward to grab his free blade, and he can match Johnny's rotations. He follows Johnny up into a scratch spin, checks out, and grabs Johnny by the shoulders before he can throw down the gauntlet for a jumping duel. "I'm sorry," he says. "Tan got impatient."

"Sure," Johnny says. "Blame it on the girl." But there's a smile in his eyes. Somewhere in there, Ben's done something that Johnny approves of. 

"There's press coming by at three, right?" Ben says. "So, like, after they clear out."

"Seriously?" Johnny says.

"Yeah," Ben says. "But now I have to --" He looks over his shoulder at Tanith, who is leaning back against the boards, tracing squiggly patterns into the ice with her toe pick. Ben expects her to look angry, but she doesn't. He skates back to her.

She takes his hand and twirls him around. "That was --"

"Awkward?"

"Hot," she says, and she giggles. "Intense."

"Don't say that," he says. 

"Okay," she says. "I won't _say_ it." They run the rotational lift from the end of their program a couple of times, but they've got it down so cold that it's boring. It's too hard to practice their new competitive routines without music, and the ice is getting crowded now that everybody's flights are in. She says, "I need a nap so fucking bad." She can sleep anywhere. It's another of her super powers. They go backstage, and they've got about twenty minutes until the press shows up. Tanith fishes a sweater out of her suitcase to tuck under her head, shoves a couple of folding chairs together, and is unconscious within seconds. Ben puts on his iPod, claims a chair of his own, and tries not to think about how laid he's going to get in an hour and a half.

Nobody has any real interviews in Tulsa, just smiling at the camera and throwing a couple of tired sound bites at the _Tulsa World_ and Oklahoma's News Channel 8. Everyone is bored: the reporters all wish they could be covering the World Cup, and half the skaters wish they could be watching it. So it is the unifying force of international soccer that lets Ben get blown this much sooner. 

As soon as the last reporter is gone, he and Johnny are off to the men's room, sweaty and exhausted and stinking of airplane but all over each other anyway. They spent most of the press meeting trying not to rip each other's clothes off with their eyes, and they don't have time to kiss. Ben gets a quick peck on the lips before Johnny is shoving his pants down from his hips, rolling a condom onto his dick, and making him slam his back resonantly into the stall divider. Johnny likes to get him before he's hard, to show off how long he can work, how much he can take. Ben has no complaints. This is the last time he's ever going to be with someone who's willing to spend this much time on his dick. "Slow down," he says, because he's not ready for it to be over yet. Johnny obeys, and Ben gets to feel every stroke of his tongue separately. His dick screams for relief, but Johnny's not the only one who has to prove how much he can take. He hates that it feels as good as it does when Johnny makes him come. 

Johnny tosses the condom into the toilet and stands up. He leans in for a kiss, but Ben dodges him. The intimacy will make him forget that he can't keep having this. He puts his hand down Johnny's pants. Johnny gasps, and Ben has to catch him at his waist to keep him from tripping. Ben runs his fist up Johnny's dick, base to tip, and Johnny gasps again. But when he starts to kneel, Johnny says, "No, keep doing that."

"I'm that bad?" Ben says.

"No, you're good, you're better than you think, I just, I don't always want the same thing all the time, and your hand --"

"Okay," Ben says. 

He reaches down farther to cup Johnny's balls in the palm of his hand. He runs his fingertips down and around, back to Johnny's dick, and when that gets Johnny to claw at his back, he does it again a couple of times. Johnny is saying, "Oh God, oh Ben," like he's not seeing that much difference between the two. It scares Ben to hear Johnny say his name: it's too personal, too much about him and not enough about the sex. He wraps his hand around Johnny's dick again and jerks him off hard and fast, the friction raising heat. Johnny is aggressive when he's close, like all the power has run to the center of his body. But Ben is fixated on the beauty of his face in ecstasy: his eyelids fluttering, his mouth wide, his skin bright with exertion, his hairline beading with sweat. 

"Good thing I brought clean underwear," Johnny says, and it kills Ben that he has no idea this is all he gets.

*

This is not going the way Ben planned it. He did not plan to visit that stall in the Tulsa Convention Center men's room again during the second act of the show for one last encore blow job. He did not plan to promise to drop by Johnny's room later that night, and he absolutely didn't plan to go. And kissing Johnny as soon as the door is open, that isn't in any way part of the plan, but Johnny answers the door naked and Ben has no self-control. Ben has gotten two blow jobs already today, but he hasn't let himself be kissed. That was the plan. The kisses mess with his mind. They convince him that he's not ready to give this up.

Johnny helps him out of his shirt and says, "I don't get you."

"There's not much to get," Ben says.

"That's what you want people to think, isn't it?" Johnny says. He squeezes Ben's ass like it's going to get him the answer he wants. "And then you hunt people down and attack them with sit spins."

"You tried to knock me over," Ben says.

"There wasn't much room on the ice," Johnny says. His hand is still on the outside of Ben's jeans, but he's working the fabric into a barrier between his fingers and the part of Ben's ass that Ben would normally consider off limits. Ben would break his arm for it, but it feels so fucking good that he's putting the violence on the back burner for now. Johnny says, "And I could have knocked you over with a feather." Johnny does something with his thumb on that piece of skin between Ben's ass and his balls, and this is instantly a monologue, because Ben's not so much as getting the words out. But he's listening: it's hard to ignore a guy who's got him by the balls. "You were going to break up with me tonight, weren't you?" Johnny says. "Not that you can break up with someone that you were mostly using for the readily available head, but you were going to try. And the thing is, at first I thought it was me you were afraid of. Like, you thought I was going to fall in love with you or something stupid like that. But I think I'm wrong. I think there's actually stuff going on in your head, and the problem is, you're a good actor. You know you can make me believe anything, so that's what you do."

"I'm not trying to fuck with you," Ben says. It comes out as a gasp.

"No, you're just trying to fuck me," Johnny says. He lifts his hand off Ben's ass and claws it up Ben's back.

"I'm trying to stop," Ben says.

"All right," Johnny says, not letting Ben out of his arms, not getting any less naked. "Leave."

"This isn't how this is supposed to go," Ben says.

"I'm supposed to let you go without a fight, right?" Johnny says. "Right. But the problem with that is, I don't get you. And when I don't get something, I have to, I have to keep working at it until I have it completely, until it's easy. But, like, I know you're a person, I know I can't just -- If you need to go, you should go. But I can't _let_ you."

When Johnny falls quiet, Ben realizes that he's just finished hearing one of the most romantic things anyone has ever said to him, and he bites his lip so he can't kiss anything. "Then I can't go," he says.

"Really?" Johnny says. His whole face softens, and he looks about twelve years old. Like a kid who's just been told that he can have whatever he wants, and who is going to abuse that promise because it's not his money. 

Ben takes off his sandals, his jeans, and his underwear. "Fuck it," he says. "There's more than one way out of this." He's trying not to think about how much more difficult this path is going to be. But he's not thinking of his dick, either, or of fingers almost inside his ass, except in the abstract sense of things that he should have resisted and hasn't. The things that he's followed his body into. It's so easy to give in to that, to kiss. So easy to kiss someone he doesn't have to lean down for. Johnny's body radiates heat. He shifts so Ben can feel how hard he is, or to make that situation less uncomfortable. Either way, their dicks actually brush each other, and that's another strange thing that feels better than it ought to.

Kissing, they tumble back onto the bed. Ben doesn't know what's going to happen to him, and he can't think of anything he would stop Johnny from doing to him. Maybe if it hurt, but that's the only limit he's placing. Johnny is on top of him, tiring out his tongue, pressing his weight into a flat palm on Ben's chest. When he comes up for air, he doesn't go right back to kissing but says, "Blow job? Or something more interesting?"

"How about interesting?" Ben says.

"Good answer," Johnny says, and then he looks around the room and says, "Damn it."

"What?"

"I only really packed for blow jobs," Johnny says.

"Blow jobs are fine," Ben says. 

"Okay," Johnny says, climbing off of him. 

"Wait," Ben says while Johnny is searching for condoms. "What do you mean, you only packed for blow jobs?"

"I brought condoms," Johnny says. "Condoms in optimistic quantities. I think I have KY. But other than that -- no gloves, no wrap, no toys, no -- I'm scaring you."

"A little," Ben says. "But good scared. Interested-scared."

Johnny's smile could melt butter and does melt Ben. Johnny understands the good fear. It's the fear that reminds you how to fall safely when you know there's nothing you can do about going down. "So, okay, our options are pretty much limited to stuff we've done, plus you fucking me," Johnny says.

"If that's what you want," Ben says.

Johnny overinterprets that and sounds crestfallen when he says, "We don't have to."

"No, it's just, I feel like I should master the other stuff before I start trying anything new."

Johnny drops his handful of assorted condoms on the bed. He swings his long leg over Ben and sits in his lap, facing him, kissing distance. "I'm not scoring you," he says. "So don't -- just --" He frees a tendril of Ben's hair and smoothes it between his thumb and forefinger. "You should just, you should assume it's good. Assume it's great. I mean -- and don't take this the wrong way, but if your personality was the only thing I couldn't get out of my head? I would have asked you out when we were skating junior events."

"Harsh," Ben says.

"No, I mean, I told you. I thought I, like, I thought I knew what kind of person you were, and now I'm finding out that you're the kind of person who would get me off in every city from Duluth to Las Vegas, and -- and I've been making lists in my head of all the things I want to convince you to do to me."

"What happens when we cross everything off the list?" Ben says.

"You shouldn't encourage me to delude myself that you'll be around that long," Johnny says.

Ben can't handle that maudlin crap: he's got enough of it going on in his own head. He says, "So it's a long list?"

"I have to keep adding stuff," Johnny says. 

"Like what?" Ben says. By now, he really is curious, especially since Johnny is backtracking. He's starting to worry that Johnny wants to be peed on or to dress up in chipmunk costumes or something.

"You're going to keep pressing me all night, aren't you?" Johnny says.

"I'll probably give up and fall asleep after a couple of hours," Ben says. He puts his hands on Johnny's upper arms, and he can feel the tension in them. "What? Seriously, there's not much you can say that would even begin to build on the weirdness of the last couple of weeks."

"I don't know," Johnny says. "I said that thing about you fucking me and you got all --"

"I didn't get all anything," Ben says. "Just show me where to put it, and I'll --"

He gets a laugh out of Johnny, and he feels the anxiety melt out of him. Johnny plays with Ben's hair for a moment before kissing him. Ben knows what to expect when Johnny kisses him now, and that familiarity is comforting. When they're kissing, it stops being about being with a guy in the abstract and starts being about Johnny specifically. Like Ben could kiss a hundred other guys, and none of them would feel anything like this. Johnny breaks off the kiss for a moment to lick his palm, then trails his hand down Ben's chest to his dick. It's not really a hand job -- more like teasing him, waking him up, playing with his balls and the tip of his dick. It's enough to get Ben hard but not so much that he has to stop kissing.

Johnny glides out of Ben's lap. "Just show you where to put it?" he says. "Okay. Here." He kneels facing the head of the bed, legs slightly apart, and puts his hands flat on the headboard. He looks like he's praying or waiting for his program music to start. "Use one that's not flavored," he says, and it takes Ben a moment to realize that he's talking about the condoms. Johnny's back is curved slightly, his spine a long, gentle arch, every muscle distinct. Ben puts a hand on each side of Johnny; he can feel Johnny's ribs. He realizes that he's going to need to guide himself in, but Johnny is ready for him, used to it, easy and pleased to take Ben in. Now, it's just sex. It's easy to feel Johnny's body react, to adjust his speed and shift his hips so that Johnny is sighing happily. So he can concentrate on his own dick, on the rise and ache and on the bliss of coming. He assumes that Johnny can't possibly be satisfied, but Johnny shakes his head, laughing softly, and says he got there a while before Ben did. He's ruined a pillowcase. He seems proud of himself.

"Do you want me to still be here?" Ben says. He kisses the back of Johnny's neck.

"It's a really long list," Johnny says.

*

They joke in the morning about devoting their free afternoon in Dallas to crossing things off Johnny's list, but that's exactly the kind of thing that the Champs on Ice staff organize group sightseeing day trips to prevent. So they spend their afternoon in the West End, Johnny towards the front of the pack with the Russians, Ben lagging behind with the other Americans and Gwendal. Tanith generously keeps the conversation steered as far away from Ben's sex life as possible. Some of the others have to have figured things out by now, but they're either maintaining a respectful distance or retreating in disgust. Ben catches Johnny's eye a couple of times, and Johnny smiles back at him, but they're quick and careful about it. It's not until they're herded into a restaurant (Western-themed; the guide says something about its being historic, but nobody's paying attention) that they start making prolonged eye contact. Ben can't help it: those eyes are right there, across the table, and whenever he looks to his left they're all he can see.

Sometime between the entree and the slow descent into group drunkenness, Johnny excuses himself to go to the bathroom. He takes the long way around the table so he can accidentally-on-purpose bump into Ben's chair. Ben counts silently to a hundred, waits a couple of extra beats just to be safe, and follows him. The men's room has a few urinals but only one stall. Ben checks underneath its door, sees a pair of expensive-looking black-and-silver sneakers that no other man in the state of Texas would be caught dead in, and knocks. Neither of them says anything. They're trying to finish each other off as fast as possible. Still, when Ben gets back to the table, Evan pats him on the back like his suspicions have just been confirmed.

"This is _not_ what we discussed," Tanith hisses into his ear.

"No, this is exactly what we discussed," he whispers back. She appraises him for a moment, and then she seems to get it.

The COI guide handles the check, and she announces that there's a van waiting outside for anyone who wants to head back to the hotel. There's usually a van, and it's a van that Ben seldom takes. Even if he doesn't plan to stay out late, he'd rather make his own way back. But Johnny makes eye contact and nods his head to the side, and suddenly the loser van is a valuable service.

He and Johnny have sex in his hotel room that night; the next morning before breakfast; between their practice slot and lunch; and in the middle of the second act of the show. At the airport, they sneak in a quick exchange of head in the men's room after they've gotten through security. He is worn out and elated when he gets on the plane back to Detroit.

"I can't believe you're breaking up with Merrie over this," Tanith says after they've found their seats but before he can get his ear buds in.

"She'll break up with me anyway when she finds out," he says. "Him, at least I've been honest with."

She purses her lips. "I hadn't thought of it that way," she says.

"Seriously, I don't think she _should_ stay with me," Ben says. "I wouldn't stay with me."

"It's just, is _Johnny_ really worth throwing all that away for?" she says.

"I'm not leaving her for him," he says. "I mean, in the extremely likely event that I come home to a phone message saying that I'm nice and all, but I'll never be Russian enough for him? I'd still have to tell Merrie, and even if she could forgive me, that's not -- it wouldn't be the same. It's fucked up forever." A tear wells in one of his eyes, and he rubs it away, trying to make it look like it's something going wrong with his contact lens. Tanith is hard to fool, though, and that's probably why she doesn't prolong the discussion. She lets him hide in his music. He spends the rest of the flight thinking of how brightly Merrie used to shine in his eyes. He hates that he couldn't make that last. It's been a long time since Merrie's made him feel like they were the only two people in the universe, but when he sees her now, she reignites the memory of that feeling. He still loves her, but what he loves is mostly their past. Realizing that makes it easier for him to plan what he's going to say to her, and by the time the plane lands, he's got a script for their breakup in his head.

He doesn't get a chance to use it. He invites Merrie over so that he can break the bad news to her in person, rehearsing his lines in his head while he waits for her to arrive. But one sentence is all he needs. He's not sure whether it's the "I cheated on you," the "with a guy," or the "and lied about it," but something in there resonates with her, because she replies, "You've got some stuff at my house that you should probably come get." He says he'll ask Tanith to swing by, and she seems relieved to hear that. And then she's gone. No tears, no fighting; she even makes a point of shutting the door gently. He wonders if he's not the only one who's sensed that this had been dying for a long time. 

He feels like he ought to call Tanith or one of his other friends, like he shouldn't be alone right now, but he can't imagine being around people. He goes to his room to play the guitar, but he grabs his phone on the way, in case he changes his mind. It's been a while since he's had a chance to practice on the acoustic, and trying to do Spanish guitar on a miniature electric at 60 miles per hour is almost self-defeating. He spends a long time just tuning, enjoying the organic process of getting each string perfect. He plays blues progressions because they're simple, foundational. It's wise, he thinks, to concentrate on that kind of thing. 

He's still got his phone next to him. He remembers that Johnny seems to like to communicate by text message, so he writes a quick one: "No more girlfriend." He adds, "All yours," but he deletes that part before he presses send.

He goes back to his guitar, but before five minutes have gone by, his phone rings. "Seriously?" Johnny says. "You broke up with her?"

"Pretty much," Ben says. 

"So, like..."

"I don't know," Ben says. "I thought you should know."

"Okay," Johnny says. "Thanks."

"I mean, it's not like -- It doesn't mean we're, like, dating or anything," Ben says. "Like, we could be. If you want to. But only if, you know, it's whatever you want."

"I don't know," Johnny says. "I mean, we're not going to see each other for two weeks. I'm going to be in Japan for half of that. It could just, like, blow over."

"Yeah," Ben says. Johnny is silent on the other end of the line. Ben is afraid that he's alienated him, too, and that he's gone through all of this for nothing. He didn't think it would be so scary to be single. He says, "Has it blown over yet?"

Johnny laughs, which is a relief. "Was it just today?" he says. "That you, that you broke up."

"Yeah," Ben says. "Worked out in the morning, ran our new compulsory dances all afternoon, left my girlfriend in the evening."

"Well, you're productive," Johnny says. "I got to spend my whole day dealing with the fact that my new costume doesn't fit right."

"Oh, that's so annoying."

"And it's one of those things where, like, it's fine as long as I stand still, but the fabric pulls in the back. And I'm trying to be calm about it, but inside, I'm like, not so easy to do a combination spin when half my costume is up my ass. I'm so fucking tired of 'My Way' and I love this new program, and I'm pissed off that it's getting delayed for costume issues when I could be, like, actually skating."

"Is it going to be done in time for the next leg of the tour?" Ben says.

"That's what they tell me," Johnny says. "I'm just, it's like I'm all itchy. Because it's new and shiny and I don't get to show it off."

"Totally," Ben says. "We're so 'Yay, waltz' over here that we have to remind ourselves that we can't do our compulsories on tour."

"Wow. You're hardcore."

"Hey, I just got the new tux, and it fits."

"Well, there you go," Johnny says. "I bet you're hot in the tux."

"All our costumes are pre-screened for hotness," Ben says. It's not even a joke. A few years ago, he and Tanith realized that they were allowed to reject the tacky matching outfits and go for sexy, and they've never looked back. 

Johnny is quiet for a moment. Ben can practically hear him thinking on the other end of the line. "Are we dating?" Johnny says.

"We might be," Ben says. They don't get into it any further than that, but they stay on the phone for another hour. They mostly talk shop, with a few excursions into gossip. Nothing deep. But they have things to say to each other. Ben let himself forget what it's like to talk to somebody who you haven't had every conceivable conversation with yet. 

Johnny calls at about the same time the next night, and this time they make an attempt at phone sex. It gets shy and awkward, and they go back to brainstorming possibly-true rumors to spread about Brian Joubert. The sex they have isn't really conducive to conversation, and they get around to noting that their previous relationships were both dominated by phone sex to a dispiriting extent. "It's not a big deal," Johnny says. "It just means I'll wait until after we hang up to picture you naked and jerk off."

"Is that what you do?" Ben says.

Johnny gets defensive. "Is that a problem? Should I have not told you?"

"No, it's just that--" Ben affects a dramatic whisper. "It's just that I've been picturing Brian."

Johnny snorts. "In his tiny pants?"

"In his tiny little French pants," Ben says. They both bust up laughing so hard that the dogs start freaking out. Bailey starts up and then Chili joins in and it turns into massive pet psychosis, and Ben has to tell Johnny to hang on while he sends them outside to cool off. 

"You're a dog person," Johnny says when the crisis has been averted. "Now I have no choice. I have to date you."

*

Johnny wasn't kidding when he said that most of the things on his list required equipment. He arrives in Kansas City with his suitcase carefully packed so that the layers of costumes and street clothes obscure a collection of sex toys large enough to seriously frighten Ben. Ben assumes they're sex toys, at least. There are a couple of things that look like doorstops, one that looks like a string of rubber beads, and something shaped like an egg. Johnny's been trying to keep his suitcase out of Ben's line of sight, but when he realizes he's failed, he says, "I thought I'd just bring everything I had. A lot of it, I've never even used, but, like, there's this store in Boston, and every time I go in there I end up buying some kinky thing."

For the life of him, Ben cannot compose a response to this. He's too busy wondering what the egg-like object does.

"I guess that means the shopping addiction's really bad, right?" Johnny says. "When you can't save up for a house because you can't resist anything shiny that runs on batteries."

Ben thinks about mentioning that he has a house, but he decides that it's too soon. "Think of it this way," he says. "If you have a house, you'll have that much more room for all your shiny, battery-powered stuff."

"The whole place would just be one big walk-in closet," Johnny says. "Not that I could live in a closet if I tried."

Ben laughs, but there's something missing from it. It's so much easier to have a conversation with Johnny when there's distance between them, when Johnny isn't right there with his perfect ass and his wicked smile. Ben doesn't know why he's working so hard to hold back, when Johnny is probably waiting to be tackled down and blown. But they're in a different place than they were two weeks ago. They're not just messing around; they're actually together. That ought to warrant some restraint.

"Are you okay?" Johnny says. "Did I do something? Seriously, tell me. I don't want to do it again." He sits down on the bed. He is all dimples and pent-up energy, but he's hardly touched Ben since they got to his hotel room. Ben's pretty sure that's the problem. They're both trying so hard to date each other that they've forgotten that the foundation of this relationship is sex. 

Ben kicks off his shoes and climbs into Johnny's lap. "You didn't do anything," he says. "We're just -- transition problems or something. We're awkward turtles."

"Oh, God, Evan's whole thing?" Johnny laughs nastily, but he puts the palm of one hand on top of the other and makes his thumbs swim like flippers. Ben makes his own hand turtle, and they engage in the war of the Fabulous Fighting Awkward Turtles. Ben is starting to get the upper hand, but Johnny shifts his hips and sends them both sprawling sideways. Ben has to disassemble his turtle to catch himself. Johnny slips his arm into the gap between Ben's arm and body. Now that he's being held, it seems only right that they ought to kiss. Meeting Johnny's lips, he wonders how he got through the past two weeks without being kissed. 

One of the good things about dating Johnny is not worrying about wasting so much time on kissing. Not feeling like he has to get laid and get out, not assuming that this might be their last time together. Johnny tastes like cinnamon again, and his lips are cool but his tongue is warm. Ben puts his hand on Johnny's dick, over his jeans, and Johnny smiles and purrs into Ben's mouth. Ben asks what he wants, and Johnny says, "Blow me." Some things haven't changed. 

It's as if the sex reminds them what they are to each other. After Johnny gets Ben off, he raises his head up between Ben's legs and says, "Do you think there's a drug store around here? Like, walking distance."

"Ought to be," he says. "We're in the middle of suburban hell. I mean, depending on what you consider walking distance. What do you need?"

"Stuff," Johnny says.

"Come on," Ben says. "I'm not going out there in the 90-degree heat for something it turns out I've got in my bag."

"I've got, like, three condoms left. For the week. And a tiny little bottle of KY. I knew it was going to take long enough to get through security with my skates and my toy collection, so I figured we'd stock up here."

Ben rolls his eyes. "I brought condoms."

"What flavor?"

"Cinnamon," Ben says. "And piña colada, because I thought it was funny."

"Gold star for the recovering heterosexual," Johnny says. He stretches up to kiss Ben's forehead. "Tell me you got a big box of extra strength lubed, win another star."

"Is that a thing?"

"For the butt sex," Johnny says.

"Not so much."

"And, you know, gloves would be nice. And more lube. And, um --"

"Scissors?" Ben says.

"I was going to say whipped cream," Johnny says. "Scissors?"

"You're not the only one who knows stupid condom tricks," Ben says.

Johnny presses him, but Ben explains nothing. They put their clothes on, get directions to the nearest Walgreen's from the woman at the front desk, and brave the Missouri sunshine. When they get to the store, they find everything on their list, realize how embarrassing the contents of their basket are, and add random things which end up making it worse. A box of Band-Aids, three bottles of diet peach iced tea, tweezers, a jar of peanut butter, and a box of 48 crayons. It disappoints Ben that the cashier rings them up without blinking. 

As soon as they've gotten back to Johnny's hotel room, Johnny is begging to see the stupid condom trick. "It's not that useful," Ben tries to explain. "I mean, not for us." Nonetheless, he snips the end off the condom, slices it lengthwise, and holds up the rectangle of latex. 

"Oh my God, you used to go down on _girls_ ," Johnny says. "You are _so_ useful." He's not being sarcastic.

"I don't -- I mean, I'm probably just ignorant here? But I don't see how it's -- how it's the same skill."

"Well, I don't think it would be the _same_ ," Johnny says. "But, like --"

"There's some serious anatomical differences," Ben says. "I mean --"

"Don't describe them," Johnny says quickly, sounding genuinely repulsed. Ben wonders why Johnny's allowed to balk at the mention of a clitoris, when Ben's supposed to be gleefully sticking his tongue in Johnny's ass. 

He is possibly reading too much into this. "I'll do it," he says. "I'll totally do it, just, maybe you should lower your expectations a little."

"Okay, the problem is? You say that, like, every time, and then you make me come for, like, an hour."

Ben closes his eyes and tries to relax. He makes a mental list of the things he's done that have made him a little sick to his stomach at first but turned out amazing: his hand on Johnny's dick, Johnny's dick in his mouth, his dick in Johnny's ass. 

"Would it help if I did it to you first?" Johnny says.

"Yeah. Maybe." Ben undresses slowly, and Johnny mirrors him: shirt, shoes and socks, pants and underwear. Johnny is shy with his body sometimes, shifting his knees and swinging his arms like he has something to hide. Ben knows all about pretending to be a show-off so people don't realize how insecure you are. He's learned some security, after the fact, but he keeps noticing places where he doesn't trust himself. Johnny's been part of that -- he's happy to push Ben where he doesn't think he wants to go -- but he's not the only thing. Ben hasn't thought of himself as pushing Johnny the same way, but he has these bursts of shyness. Ben can't tell where his boundaries are; he can't see what Johnny's afraid of. 

He goes up to Johnny and runs his hands slowly down Johnny's arms to make him hold still. He has to tilt his chin upward to kiss Johnny's forehead, and it's awkward but right. Johnny's body eases. He plays with the loose wisps of hair at the back of Ben's neck. The label of 'boyfriend' hasn't sat well on either of them so far, but it does now. Ben's pretty sure it'll pass in a moment. It always seems to, the feeling that he knows where he stands, that he's content where he is.

He lets Johnny kiss him, lets Johnny guide him to the bed and lay him down flat on his stomach. "I have to make a new one," Johnny says. "This one got fuzz on it." Ben hears scissors and tries to relax. Johnny makes that easier when he lies down flat on top of Ben, chest pressed into Ben's shoulder blades, still-soft dick at the small of Ben's back. He lifts Ben's ponytail to kiss the back of his neck and then to run the tip of his tongue over it, along the path of Ben's spine. He strokes his hands down Ben's arms, easing him. When Ben has yielded to his touch, he presses a knee between Ben's to make him spread his legs. "Are you concentrating?" Johnny says.

"Yeah. Why?"

"You know when you're watching someone, and you can tell they're thinking really hard about what they're doing with their bodies? That's you."

"So you're critiquing me now?" Ben says.

"I've tried everything else," Johnny says.

"Listen. The only way you're going to get me to stop freaking out about you licking my ass is by actually doing it."

Johnny doesn't answer, but he laughs softly. He shifts his weight back onto his knees and kisses Ben where his back becomes his ass, just once. He gets up off of Ben, and Ben twists upward to watch him. Johnny goes back to the Walgreen's bag, cracks open the new bottle of KY, and squeezes lube into the improvised dental dam like he's putting syrup on a pancake. He climbs back on top of Ben, knees between Ben's legs, and he pushes Ben's shoulder down so Ben can't see what he's doing. 

Ben feels a cool rush of air in a place that does not normally receive them. It feels like having someone blow in his ear, tickly and sweet. He thinks Johnny is smearing something on him, but after a moment he realizes Johnny is spreading out the dam, and the KY is making it stick. It's not hot, exactly, but it's not uncomfortable, and Johnny's fingers would feel good anywhere. Or maybe that isn't Johnny's fingers. 

No, _that's_ not a finger, because it's so much nicer. Ben's eyes squeeze shut, and he moans. Johnny works his tongue in more forcefully, and Ben can't keep himself quiet. He's getting so hard so fast he has to shift onto his hip so it doesn't hurt. Johnny moves with him effortlessly, keeping up the slick pressure of his tongue, sliding a hand between Ben's parted legs to wrap a hand around Ben's dick. Ben is making all kinds of noise, and he can't stop. He used to be a quiet guy.

He has come all over the bed, and he seems to have lost all power of speech. His throat hurts. Nothing else hurts at all. "God," he croaks.

"You saw Him?" Johnny says. He seems to have climbed off of Ben's legs. He might be on the other side of the room; it's hard to say.

"Who?"

"God."

"Oh," Ben says. "Ha."

"Seriously," Johnny says. "If I'd known the way to your heart was through your ass, I would have --"

"That wasn't my heart," Ben says. He manages to get his knees under him and sit up, stretching out his back. He figures out that the world is blurry not because he's had the most intense orgasm of his life, but because one of his contacts has popped out. He laughs to himself and shrugs. He's brought spares.

"Are you all right?" Johnny says.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I just have to make sure I didn't lose my contact in the back of my eye."

"So, wait, did I fuck you blind?" Johnny says.

"Half-blind," Ben says. He gets his contact stuff out of his backpack and goes to the bathroom to restore his eyesight. When he gets back, Johnny has found the one that fell out. "Just throw it away," Ben says. _Just throw everything away,_ he thinks. Johnny is over by the desk looking for the trash can, and the muscles in his back ripple as he leans down. It's like Ben can see how he's put together, see where those beautiful contortions come from. He knows it's not what Johnny wants, but he could bend Johnny over the desk with two quick steps forward and the pressure of his hands. He has lived long enough, he thinks, with not being sure of what he wants. 

Johnny leans into the desk, weight forward on his hands, and lets Ben have him. Lets Ben grind against him until he's hard again, lets Ben go in roughly before either of them are ready and asks only after Ben is inside him if Ben remembered the condom. Which he did; how could he not? There's always got to be some space between the two of them.

*

Everyone knows they're together. That's not quite news: everyone who needs to know has known for a while. But it's spread to the people that neither of them are close with, the people they both actively despise, the people who don't speak English or Russian and must be receiving their gossip via hand gestures and deductive reasoning. It's not like they're being subtle or anything, but Ben feels like he's being monitored. This is going to be one of those legendary secret skating relationships that get whispered about for generations. Remember Toller and John, Brian and Brian, Paul and Chris? Same song, new verse. 

They still sit separately on the bus and stick with their usual cliques on group outings. They're only a couple when they're alone together. It's not fear of the press or USFSA that keeps them away from each other, although those might be valid concerns. They have different friends. Ben's not interested in hanging around a bunch of girls who bitch about fashion in warp-speed Russian, and he's seen how tense and uneasy Johnny gets around the other American guys. He hasn't said anything specific, but Ben thinks he knows what the problem is: Johnny thinks they look down on him, thinks they're ashamed to be seen with him. He gets along fine with most of them one on one, so it doesn't quite make sense. But when he's around the other Americans, it's like he's in an uncomfortable chair and he can't figure out how to sit.

"Your eyes are stuck again," Tanith says. The bus doesn't leave for an hour, everyone's been awake for two hours, and the cast of Champions on Ice is having the slowest breakfast in figure skating history. Evan, Gwendal, and Dan have given up and gone outside to play Frisbee in the parking lot. Ben didn't mention that he was bowing out because he was still sore from another night of kinky sex, but his friends would have been astonished to hear any other explanation.

"What?" Ben says. "Sorry."

"You can just go over there," Tanith says. "I won't be offended."

"I don't want to go over there," Ben says. "I spent my whole night over there."

"With Marina and Irina and Tania?"

"You're funny," Ben says.

"That's a lot of Russians for one man to handle," Tanith says. "Is all I'm saying."

Ben stirs the three lonely, soggy Cheerios he's been using as an alibi. He tries to make a Cheerio vortex, but the bowl is too shallow, and the milk splashes. "This is actually all your fault," he says.

"No no no no no," she says. "Don't even _start_ suggesting that."

"You were the one who told me he had a thing for me," Ben says.

"Oh my God," she says.

"What?" Ben says. "Is this another one of those things where you lie to me to get rid of me and I believe you and then you laugh at me?"

"No, it's just --" She is gazing very deeply into her melon. "I wasn't talking about Johnny. I was -- okay, I shouldn't even tell you this. He didn't want you to know, which probably means he shouldn't have told me, but. Anyway. I wasn't talking about Johnny. I was talking about Evan."

"Shit," Ben says. Slowly, so he can let it sink in.

"I don't think he's upset," Tanith says. "I don't think he ever expected -- I don't think he's mad at you."

"Yeah," he says. "But still." If she'd told him this a couple of months ago, it wouldn't have mattered. He would have thought it was sweet and a little sad. But now it was a possibility: everything was a possibility. He wishes he'd known that what he'd asked for was for the lid of the box to fly open, for all the fears and horrors of the world to fly out.

*

Johnny is kind of obsessed with putting things in Ben's ass. Ben now understands the usefulness of every toy in Johnny's collection: the rocket-shaped plugs designed to hit right at your prostate, the chain of beads that Johnny bought a duplicate of in San Francisco because each bead is like a whole new orgasm and Johnny was tired of not being able to share because you can't get a condom on one of those. And the egg thing, which you can't really put inside anywhere, but it vibrates gently and insistently. They have proven that you can stay up until sunrise finding places to hold it or trail it until they get to trade blow jobs and start over.

Ben's hotel room contains the ugliest burgundy paisley armchair in the history of interior design, and Johnny has him standing on the seat of it, bent over the back. Johnny bounces up onto the chair behind Ben. He holds his hand next to Ben's ear so Ben can hear the latex glove snap as Johnny puts it on. It is possibly the sexiest sound in the world. Most of the noises people make during sex are messy and wet and animal, but that clean, sharp snap is a promise that something is going to feel very good very soon, and that the wearer of the glove is very sure of what he's doing.

The KY bottle wheezes softly: not one of the world's sexier sounds, but a reassurance of another kind. Johnny's first cold finger makes Ben shiver. Johnny makes his body a blanket. He wraps his right arm around Ben's chest and presses up against Ben's back. That shift frees Johnny to push his finger in deeper, to give Ben an otherworldly wave of pleasure, to make him sigh low and soft. Toys are fun, but Ben likes fingers better: fingers bend. There are two of them in there now, and they're warm, slick, firm against his muscles' resistance. Ben can feel them not just in his ass but in a winding curve up his back, in his throat and in his lips, but most of all in his dick. That's the great thing about having his ass played with: he can feel it all over, his whole body working together.

Three fingers in and Ben is close to coming. He expects Johnny to trail his free hand down for a quick finishing hand job, but instead, Johnny pulls out completely and leaves Ben cold, hard, and bent over. Ben starts to climb down from the chair, but Johnny says, "No, wait there." 

The slick, gloved fingers return, along with something else that has a condom on it. Ben says, "What is that? Did you buy something new and not tell me?"

"No, that's my dick," Johnny says with a nervous little laugh.

"Oh," Ben says.

"No, I just thought, like, it's not something I've done that much, and I was just... I was curious. I wanted to know what it would feel like. I mean, I can -- I can take it out if it's too much." It ought to be too much. This should be the final frontier, the last shred of masculine remove that Ben is hanging onto. But it just feels good. Ben isn't surprised anymore when things feel good; he's usually more surprised when they don't, when there's something wrong and they have to adjust or try something else.

"No," Ben says. "Go for it."

Johnny drives his hips forward, and it's not bad, but it's not great. Ben leans forward a few degrees and rests one knee on the arm of the chair. Johnny tries to follow, but Ben says, "No, hold still. There -- try again." Johnny draws back and then moves in again. Ben tries to say, "Yeah, that's it," but what actually comes out of his mouth is incoherent. Johnny is saying Ben's name, and it's strange to hear Johnny's soft, gentle voice because it turns out that Johnny is neither soft nor gentle when he is on top. He is rough and fierce, powerful, and the pleasure runs up Ben's spine not in waves but in a steady pulse like someone's turned the bass all the way up. Ben comes, and that's a surprise, because Johnny hasn't even gone near his dick. He's been hard enough for long enough that he just gets there. He wants to collapse in exhaustion, to catch his breath, but Johnny's not finished, so he keeps getting that bass line pulse through him, out to his fingertips and up into the back of his neck. When Johnny gets off and pulls out, Ben wishes he didn't have to stop.

"So that was all right?" Johnny says.

Ben tries to answer, but there's some kind of disconnect between his brain and his mouth that he hopes isn't permanent. "Uh-huh," he manages.

"I always think I'm going too far with you," Johnny says. 

"You can't," Ben says, relieved to have recovered his power of speech.

"I could," Johnny says. "I'm sure I could. I mean, there are things _I_ won't do, so --"

"That's the thing," Ben says. "I trust you not to -- not to do anything, like, beyond. Like, you're not going to hurt me, you're not going to do anything that ends up just being gross, you're just -- I trust you." 

Johnny comes back over to the chair and holds Ben around the waist. "You are so sweet," he says, his voice even and serious. "You are just perfectly sweet."

"I'm not," Ben says. "I mean, I'm just being honest."

Johnny kisses Ben's jaw. "It's the same thing, coming from you," he says.

*

They break up at Nationals, hiding in the men's room during the winners' banquet. It's not a totally undramatic breakup: it starts with a fight about how they're not really in love with each other, they've always been more like friends who sleep together, they're not putting the kind of work into the relationship that they ought to be. Ben's not good at having fights. He says, "If it's that much effort, then maybe we should stop trying," and he means it sarcastically. But Johnny says, "Yeah, maybe," and they realize at the same time that it's the right thing. 

Ben waits until they're back at the hotel to tell Tanith they've broken up, and even she is shocked. "You were so cute," she says. "Both of you." No telepathy tonight.

Back in Detroit, he can have anyone he wants for the first time in his life. He's got a new gold medal and his whole life ahead of him. But he's shy and exhausted, and he wants to concentrate on getting ready for Worlds. He learns that there's something delicious about being single, about only being responsible for himself. His guitar skills get a whole hell of a lot better. After a week of reflective solitude, he gets a text message from Johnny. It says, "Hate me? :( "

Ben calls back, because that's how it works. "I don't hate you at all," he says. "We just burned out on each other."

"So phone calls are allowed?" Johnny says.

"I think we're actually the ones who get to decide that stuff," Ben says.

"Good," Johnny says. "Because the thing I missed? The thing I missed was talking to you."

Ben's been trying not to think about it, but that's what he's missed, too. He's got a story about another dance team who just started training under Igor and Marina, a couple of Canadian teenagers, where the girl's so transparently in love with the guy and the guy is so transparently gay. Ben hasn't had anyone to tell. Johnny wants all the stupid details. Before Ben knows it, it's two hours later, and Tanith is on his call waiting, having a small panic attack because he's just stood her up for dinner. When he tells her who he's been talking to, she says, "So you're back together?"

"I doubt it," he says. "But we work really well as friends."

Later, reheating the impressive spread of Chinese food she's ordered, she tells him, "I get why you tried, you know, going out. It's like, it didn't fit, but you had to --"

"Find something to call what we were to each other," Ben finishes.

"That's exactly it," she says.

"Yeah, well, I've had some time to think about it," he says.

He and Johnny call each other a couple of times a week, and each time is more comfortable than the last. At first, Ben shies away from telling Johnny when he's gone on a date or hooked up with someone or both. But Johnny is open about his own adventures, and Ben wants to avoid giving the impression that he's become a monk. At Worlds, Johnny greets him with kisses on the cheek, and it's funny to see the rumors start traveling now that there's nothing behind them. 

Except that there are, because it's another April and they're back on tour. Johnny comes into possession of an obscene quantity of vodka, which leads to giggly drunken making out, brief panic, and an amicable exchange of blow jobs. "Friend sex?" Johnny says afterward, like he's hoping for permission to call it that.

"Friend sex," Ben agrees, and that's what they have every so often, when they've been drinking or they're feeling lonely. It's not like their chemistry has gone anywhere. But they're better off saving it for when there's a good reason to have it.

It turns out that Johnny is not the first and last guy who Ben will ever be with, and that hookup turns into Ben's next real relationship. It's only a few months, but that's long enough for Ben to feel like he's with someone for a while. He needs to be able to feel that, as it turns out. There are more boys and more girls after that, and some of them stick around for a while, but after some time they seem to sense that Ben isn't looking for the love of his life nor looking to be anybody's. He thinks he might have already had all the great loves he's going to have, that they came too soon and he threw them both away. But he can't convince himself to subscribe to that much pessimism. Sometimes, after a really good conversation, he'll start to believe that after they've retired and gotten on with their lives, he and Johnny might make another attempt. They're adults now; they're in a different place. He's not sure if that's optimism or nostalgia. Either way, it's romantic, and Ben can't help but hang on to a little romanticism. He has to place a little faith in happy endings. It's not just that he thinks they exist: it's that he knows they exist, and the problem is, happy is sometimes the wedding and the forever love, but sometimes it's having everything else in the world but that.


End file.
